Thursday, February 27, 2014

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack
nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet
waters, He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for His Name’s
sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for
You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table
before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup
overflows. Surely Your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my
life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23, NIV).

I’m sitting in my room and I had
just finished watching a YouTube video by Paul Washer, who goes all the way in
by the way, and I could feel that tug. You know that tug when God wants you to
spend some time with Him and you can just feel Him pulling on your spirit. So I
pop open the iTunes, click worship playlist, cut off the lights, and I began to
pray. I told God that I sensed Him pulling on me and I felt that He was leading
me to pray for someone. I felt an urgency to pray for someone but I didn’t know
who and I’m asking God please give me the words, show me what it is that You
want me to pray for and who it is because I’m not sure why you are pulling on
me so heavily. I then said actually, God I don’t need to know who because You
know but just show me what to pray for. I felt the Holy Spirit showing me to pray for strength and comfort and I’m thinking okay God. Before I start to pray I
repented of anything that would cause God to not honor my prayer and I asked
Him to remove any distraction that would keep my prayer from going through. I
go to pray and I wonder again God who am I praying for? A soft yet overwhelming
response came of “it’s for you.”

It’s funny how when you’re in a
position to help other people, you can have a tendency to get so focused on
pouring into others that you don’t quite take the time to pray over yourself. Your
mind can easily go to encouraging someone else or pouring out to someone else
that you don’t allow God to pour into you. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to
have other people who are praying over you and giving you encouraging words but that can never replace
having God Himself to pour back into you or even to reveal to you areas of your
heart that you had tucked far away. Don’t forget to take the time to pray over
yourself as well. I want to share the same reminder that God placed in my
spirit tonight with you and that is that it’s going to be okay. It will be okay. You’re stronger
than this because I am with you. I
will never leave you nor forsake you. You’re going to
be okay. It's okay for you to feel this way. Don’t focus on the time that you feel you have lost but focus on the
time that you still have and make the most of that. You will be okay.

There is truly no one
word that even comes close to explaining just how awesome God is.

Monday, February 24, 2014

Here’s a fun fact
about little Miss Angel; I have very opposing personality traits all in one
person which makes life kind of interesting. I don’t mean this is in a crazy
bipolar type tendencies way, but more so for instance I’m a very structured
organized person that wants things to go exactly as to plan but I’m also a huge
procrastinator, pretty messy, and I like things pretty informal and not
structured. Like I said, it makes for an interesting life. I say all that to
say that one of my “fun” opposing personality traits that I have is that I’m
really open because I think it’s important to be transparent…yet I’m also very
guarded and it’s a lot that I don’t share for various reasons. With that being
said, if you watched the video on The Self Sufficient Christian towards the end
you noticed I was talking about an issue but not really talking about it and
that was because I wasn’t really ready to share it because I didn’t want it to
be taken out of context. In case it’s not painfully obvious, I always feel like
I have to overly explain myself so that the things I say are not taken out of
context which is why my videos/blogs are always so long. However, I talked to
my pastor and his wife about this topic yesterday and it made me realize that
it’s not abnormal for me to feel this way and that maybe other people have
these thoughts/concerns as well so I decided to share and here it goes…

Believe it or not, I have a huge
complex with the thought of marriage. On one hand I have a strong desire to be
married but on the other hand I have quite a few reservations regarding it.
Just hear me out; will I get married? Yes I will, but I have some fears
associated with it that has definitely pumped the brakes on me wanting to
pursue marriage. One of those fears is that I don’t want to end up divorced.
You hear Christians say that divorce is not an option but the reality is that
is not true. Divorce is very much so an optionbut it’s up
to the two people involved to choose otherwise. There are Christians who get
divorced all the time and it’s not because they’re not really saved or that
they didn’t really have a relationship with God but simply put marriage is hard
work and a daily choice to choose your spouse over divorce. I want to make sure
that what I am saying isn’t taken out of context at all; I am not
condoning divorce none whatsoever! The bible does not condone divorce
and I’m not telling people that it’s okay for them to take the option to
divorce at all. The reality however, is that there are saved people who get
divorced even in spite of the bible telling husband and wife to stay together.
Marriage is so much more than a wedding or a ring. It is work, like a lot of
work, and it requires you to selflessly love another person. It’s supposed to
be a lifetime commitment not just an update to your facebook relationship
status. The other side to it is the idea of FOREVER. That’s a
long time….like a REALLY LONG time. In contrast to my thoughts on
divorce, I have a fear of feeling like I have to stay in a marriage where in
the best way to put it we just end up not liking each other anymore so instead
of being husband and wife it’s like we’re just roommates.

The way I view marriage is that it’s
the closest thing to really having to understand Jesus’ love for us; well that
and having a child. (I’m definitely not saying that you cannot experience or
understand this love if you never get married or never have a child). It’s the
unconditional love of loving a person in spite of any and everything; having to
forgive the unforgivable, having to look beyond all their flaws, having to
love the unlovable in them, sticking it out when you don’t feel like it. That’s
kind of a scary thought…the thought of having to make the choice to continue to
love that person and stay when situations arise that if it was a boyfriend or
girlfriend you would end it. I wonder would I have the strength to stay through adultery, addictions, and other things that could happen after we say I do. I’m definitely not trying to act as though there
are no deal breakers in marriage so don’t think that I’m saying to stick it out
when someone is beating you or something drastic. The reality is however, in
your marriage you and your spouse will face some difficult times no matter how
saved you both are and you will have a choice to make to forgive them which may
not always be an easy decision.

Now to the other side which is just dealing
with my mess…I don’t want to get married to this amazing man of God and end up
making him an idol because I discover while married that I never allowed myself
to completely fall in love with Jesus as a single and allow Him to be
completely everything to me as an individual first. I’m just going to go ahead and throw this out
there; I am very protective of my purpose (some like to call it guarded with an
electric fence and rabid Rottweiler’s) so whoever I choose to yoke myself up
with it has to be right no if, ands, or buts about it. Whoever I marry affects
me spiritually and that in return will have an influence on God’s ministry that
He has given me. I also struggle with the realization that I won’t be perfect
going into my marriage and that there will be things that God will have to
develop in me as a wife versus a single but also wanting to “get myself
together” before becoming a wife. My pastor nicely checked me on that yesterday
by saying I can spend so much time trying to get myself together for marriage that
I miss the man that God has for me. Insert big eyed emoji! Something that God
has had to show me is to not focus on being a better woman to be a wife but to
desire to be a better woman to be a better person and that will encompass all
aspects of being a woman.

I shared a ton of negative but now I
want to share what I was encouraged with in talks that I’ve had with great men
and women of God. First John 4:18 tells us that “there is no fear in love; but
perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is
not made perfect in love” (KJV). This is the verse that popped up in my phone just after I had this conversation with my best friend a few weeks back. She reminded me that God has not given
us a spirit of fear so anytime we have fear or anxiety over a situation it’s
pretty safe to say that it is not of God. God created marriage to be a great thing;
there is no reason to fear it when you allow God to be the center
and foundation of your marriage. Will it be easy? No, but God will help you
through it and give you both the strength to keep pressing through those hard
times and to fight for your marriage. The biggest reality was that I had to
trust that God is not going to present me to a jacked up wimpy man with no vision,
no leadership skills, or who doesn’t have a heart for Him. He’s protective of
my purpose even more than I am so I don’t have to worry about that if I allow
Him to do the choosing. Lastly, it’s normal to have the concerns and
reservations BUT don’t over think it!Stop worrying! (Matthew 6:25-34). It’s good to take these things into
consideration as a single but you don’t have to worry about every single detail
of how it all is going to come together. Trust God with it.

Friday, February 21, 2014

God placed it on my heart to do a VLOG on how people say you’ve
changed once you give your life to Him (which will be up later) and He
reminded me of a particular time in my life where I was a very new
Christian yet still figuring things out. I initially did not want to
share this but I believe that God has a purpose for it and I believe
it’s a topic that hits home for us women. With that being said, I want
to have a real grown folks conversation with my ladies.

When
I first got saved there were quite a few things that I was still
riding the fence on and one of those things was fornication. I had an on
again off again boyfriend at the time who I was continuing to have sex
with even while I was still attending church and developing a
relationship with God. The interesting thing was that although I was
learning about God and knew about no sex before marriage I didn’t think
that applied as long as I was in a “committed” relationship. Long story
short, I had convinced myself that I had to stay with this person
simply because he was the one that I had lost my virginity to. The
relationship was very rocky yet we kept trying to make it work not
because we really wanted to stay together but because it was easier to
stick with what we knew and were comfortable with versus starting over.
The reality was we were both changing into two very different people
and it was not God’s will for us to be together. Due to this, every
time we tried to make it work it didn’t and it just kept getting worst
until it fell apart.

I say all that to say, as women we have
a tendency to want to stay in relationships that we know are no good
for us that we are hurting in, and that are dysfunctional and unhealthy
because we feel like we have a tie to that guy. That tie can be that
he was the one you lost your virginity to, or he’s your child’s father,
or ex-husband and so you just keep trying to make it work even though
you’re unhappy, they’re unfaithful, or don’t treat you in the way that
you deserve. The truth is the real tie that you have with this man is a
soul tie and God can’t release you from that until you let go of that
person that keeps leading you to a dead end. I know that we can feel
like we have to stay because we have so much history with a person but
that history is not always equivalent to them having a place in your
future. “A good woman is hard to find and worth far more than diamonds…”(Proverbs 31:10)

Going along with real grown folks talk…can I be honest? The irony in
my struggle of wanting to stay with my then boyfriend was that I also
had this worry of only having sex with one person and having this
curiosity of wondering if that would be as good as it gets. I wondered
how would I know that I was having “good sex” if I didn’t have anything
to compare it to? Then I feared would I be tempted to have an affair if
I married my then boyfriend because I was curious about being able to
compare it. I’m aware that’s a pretty blunt and out there statement but
I feel confident that I was not alone in the way I used to think but
nobody really wants to talk about it. Here’s the thing, there is nothing
wrong with sex; God created it to be a good thing BUT in season and that season is between husband and wife in marriage(1
Corinthians 7:1-6). I was watching this video through chaseGodtv on
YouTube (I’ll post the link later if I can remember which video it was)
and the guy was saying how there is no such thing as bad sex because
God created sex to be good (once again between a husband and wife) so
there’s no need to focus on comparing it. I believe a lot of people have
this fear of abstaining from sex until their wedding day only to find
out on the honeymoon that they’re not sexually attracted or compatible
with their partner. I don’t believe that to be true; yes, you’re able
to have sex once you’re married and that will be an important part of
your marriage but it’s not the only part. You have to get off your back
at some point…just saying. Plus, in your marriage you will learn each
other and can teach each other new things if you know what I mean.
Bottom line, when you honor God, He will honor you. Will everything be
perfect? No but God will take care of all of the details so stop
stressing.

When Angel asked me to write a blog, a
thousand things went through my head. OMG there are so many things to
say. Quick back story. When I was a little girl, I used to pray that I
would be able to have children! I dreamed of having a family, complete
with a husband and 2.5 kids. I dreamed of everything working perfect,
“Cosby Show” like. Fast forward about 10 years. I got pregnant at age
18. By age 20, all my childhood dreams had come crashing down and I was a
single mom. Never ever would have imagined this would be my life. My
daughter is now 8 and it’s been just she and I for 6 ½ years.

So as I racked my brain and asked God what to say, a few things came to me that I really want to share.

Your Child is Your First Ministry-
When I leave church, when I leave work, when I leave social media,
I am a mother above all else. It is my job to build her up, to
minister to her needs, to show her the love of Christ (Love is
patient! God is still working on me in that area). Allow God to
give you grace in motherhood. The same grace that saved you is the
grace that you tap into by faith to do all the things that a mother is
supposed to do. Pray for your child constantly. As a mother, it is
your job to cover your child. Pray for their safety, pray that they
follow Christ, pray for their future. Constantly pray.

Above All Else, Teach Your Child to Love God-
As a single mom, I am solely in charge of setting the atmosphere
in the home, I am solely in charge of my daughter’s spiritual
development. I invite my daughter into my quiet time and I
encourage her to have her own. I have taught her how to pray. I
demonstrated God’s mercy (She did something wrong and instead of
the consequence that she deserved, I taught her that God gives us
mercy and doesn’t always give us what we deserve.) I have noticed,
and have heard her say, that her love for Christ is growing daily.
If she never learns anything else, I have done my job with her.

Allow God to Lead You and Be Your Covering-
In a traditional (Dad, Mom, Children) family situation, the role
of the father is to be the provider, covering, sounding board, etc.
Single moms don’t have that. I had to learn to allow God to be
that for me. He is the father in my home. I turn to Him whenever I
need help or advice or I need Him to make a way. It doesn’t just
apply to me but also my child because she is a part of my life.

Be Gentle in All You Say and Do-
Your child’s father may not be the best. But I guarantee that if
you allow God to work a gentle spirit in you, it will work better.
My daughter’s father and I had an AWFUL relationship. Just
horrible. I would always pray that God would change Him. God
revealed to me that I was the issue. Although I was correct in what
I said, it was how I said it that made the
difference. When I learned to have a gentle spirit, our
relationship changed. He didn’t necessarily change, but by changing the
way I approached and responded to him, that created an entirely
different dynamic. And while I’m at it, RESPECT YOUR CHILD’S
FATHER! Yeah I said it. He may not be saved (my daughter’s father
is not) but what are you demonstrating for your child? Men crave
respect. ALL men. Don’t roll your eyes/neck/fingers at him while
popping off at the mouth and wonder why your relationship is a hot,
steaming mess. Show him respect, even if you don’t think he
deserves it. God gives you plenty of things you don’t deserve. The
way you interact with your child’s father may end up be a witness
to him and bring him to salvation.

If Your Child’s Father Isn’t Involved, Teach Your Child to Turn to God As Their Father-
One of the best things I ever heard from another single mom (well
it may have been a movie, but it applies either way) is that she
taught her child to turn to God as their father. Do you realize how
much that would have helped me as a child if I actually understood
that? Teach your child to go to God for help with any and
everything!

Last Thing: Support System-
My support system has been my biggest blessing being a single mom.
It is important to have people you can rely on for help and
emotional support. If you don’t have anyone, GET SOMEBODY. You are a
person too. Just because you are a single mom doesn’t mean your
life has ended. I firmly believe in “Me-Time”. It keeps me sane and
level headed. You need that too. It is great to be able to recharge
and clear your head and heart so you can be the best mom you can be.
They also say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Don’t be afraid
to trust people with your child. Your child won’t break lol.

Those are my quick points. Next to my salvation, being a mother is
the best thing that has ever happened to me. I have learned more about
myself that I would have ever imagined. I am honored that God entrusted
me with such a beautiful person and I pray I make Him proud.

BONUS: When you don’t know what to do, ask God for help. He made
your little person and He has plans for them just like He has for you.
Make sure you are always seeking Him for guidance.

Friday, February 14, 2014

If I can be honest, I baked a 24
pack of sugar cookies yesterday in honor of the lovely blizzard we had and I
had eaten all of them but two by 5 p.m. Yeah…I know. There’s some relevance, to
this just follow me. On snow days you have a ton of idle time and eventually it
gets to a point where there are only but so many movies you can watch on
Netflix, so many loads of laundry you can do with hopes that the power won’t go
out, and you get tired of the impromptu hair day you decided on last minute.
The other side of having tons of idol time is that it gives you an opportunity
to be left alone with your thoughts. The silence gets a little bit louder and God
starts tugging on you to talk to Him about the matters of your heart. This is
when the cookie eating started; I knew there was something I needed to give to
God but I didn’t feel like opening it up and dealing with it. So what did I do?
Watched movie number 2 and ate a few more cookies. When that “feeling” came back
I ate a few more cookies and as you can tell this cycle continued on for the
rest of the day until I had ate all of the cookies. No I’m not the cookie
monster and no I don’t even have a sweet tooth like that but it made me feel
better….temporarily, as I continued to go back for more.

It’s
nothing but a void filler; I’ve mentioned in a previous blog that I used to do
this with “retail therapy” and isn’t it funny how we replace one void filler
with another. It can be the smallest things that we don’t even think about that
we seek to comfort us and make us feel better instead of turning to God and
allowing Him to heal our hearts. We continue to turn to other things and people
to make us feel better yet we keep coming up short because we choose God to be
the last solution. All along He’s waiting for us to just turn to Him instead of
all that other stuff and pour out our hearts to Him. First John 1:9 tells us that
if we confess our sins that God is faithful and just to forgive us.
However, we won’t do this because sometimes deep down inside we don’t believe
this to be true. We feel as though what we’re dealing with is too heavy. We
look at the situation and we think we’ve made a mess of things so instead of
dealing with the mess we hope that it will just go away and we won’t have to
deal with it. It won’t go away; ignoring it won’t make it go away. That
emptiness, that tug on your heart, that pull, it will continue as you continue
to pacify it with void fillers that aren’t Christ. We can’t be made whole using
imitation things to fill our hearts. It just won’t work because there’s nothing
like the real thing! Void fillers drag out your freedom in Christ because you
fail to realize that if you would just give that issue to Him, you wouldn’t
have to keep going back to the counterfeit that only “fixes” the problem temporarily.

I was
having a moment the other day where I was thinking about how I needed to clean
up my room and I started to think about how I really don’t like cleaning (yes I
know I need to work on my domestic skills but that’s neither here nor there
lol) and I wondered why is it so hard for me to get motivated to clean up? God
hit me with the reason is because your mess doesn’t bother you. You don’t have
a problem with it as long as no one else sees it. It’s not until someone’s
coming to visit that you decide to clean up so you wait until someone is coming
for you to get ready. The problem with that is you don’t know when Jesus is
“coming to visit” so you can’t wait until He notifies you to start getting
ready. You always have to be ready.
We can’t afford to prolong confessing our sins to God in hopes that we can deal
with it later. Later does not come for everyone; now is the opportune time.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

God had placed it on my heart
earlier this week to talk about fighting temptations and I had somewhat been
putting it off and God must have really wanted me to share it pronto because He
hit me with this dream last night. I’m going to try to sum it up as briefly as
possible so just bear with me. In this dream I had met a guy and this guy was
very attractive. I mean VERY attractive! He looked the way that I wanted him
to, he was built the way I wanted him to be, and he was the height that I wanted
him to be. The best way to put it is he was nice on the eyes and part of
the desires of my heart in what I want in a husband. So he picks me up for our
first date and he has a really nice car so I’m thinking hmh okay, okay. Then he
takes me somewhere; I don’t ask any questions; I don’t ask where we’re going,
who is going to be there, or anything. We finally arrive at this place and I
see that it’s a club. Immediately the Holy Spirit checks me; I get that gut
feeling that is yelling CAUTION! RED FLAG! RUN FOR THE BORDER! I look at
the guy and I make the decision
to go inside with him because I figure its daylight so it’s not really the club
scene right now so it should be okay. The way that the club was set up,
there were these winding stairs that you had to walk up like three flights to
get inside. To show you how real this dream was as I was walking up the steps
the Holy Spirit was showing me my own word that I just preached two weeks ago
about being spiritually faithful and claiming
to be a Christian yet riding the fence. Then the lyrics of Jonathan
McReynolds song No Gray started playing in my head, “it would be cool if we could love
the Lord and still go do our thing. You see it doesn’t work like that, you’ve
gotta be white or black.” Once again I make the decision to continue to follow this guy in spite
of all of this.

We get inside the club and we sit at a table
and order food and I think see, this doesn’t seem that bad. We’re sitting
there eating and talking and I’m thinking wow this is a beautiful man and he
seems like a really nice guy. Remind you the topic of Jesus NEVER came up; not even
once. For some reason I had to go to his car to get something
and when I come back to the stairs there is now a line of people like a really
long line and they’re all dressed in their club get up. I’m now looking like oh
gosh this doesn’t look good
so I go back to the car. I don’t know if I was thinking of leaving or what but
I just sit there for a minute. For whatever reason I make the decision to go back inside to this guy. I go
around the line to get back in and the girl at the door asked me if I was at
least 21 and I say yeah I’m 26 (although I’m 25 so that was weird but there’s a
story for that later) and she goes to put a hot pink wristband on me to show
that I’m legal to drink and I start slightly panicking and thinking omg what if
someone sees me and thinks that I’m drinking, this is a mess!
Nonetheless, I make the decision
to go back inside to the club and now the music is on very loud and people are
inside dancing all on each other. I see the table where the guy is sitting and
to my surprise there are four other people sitting in our booth with him now.
So now I’m really confused like what is going on? I make the decision to go over to the table anyways and what
do you know it’s his family…like the whole family; his mother, father, and two
siblings. This is our first date remind you. The mom is asking me a ton of
questions and the father is staring at me and I’m just sitting there like a
deer in headlights. What really took the cake was when his mother said, “So
tell me about yourself, what do you do?”I didn’t mention anything about Changed Hearts,
ministering the gospel, or anything relative to my relationship with Christ and
the Holy Spirit urged me to say it and I didn’t. It wasn’t just that
I didn’t, but it was like I didn’t want to. We’re talking back and forth and
then the mom says son I think she will make a wonderful wife and I’m sitting
there thinking oh gosh how did I get
here??? Then I woke up….

Okay, so
that wasn’t brief but I wanted to make sure that you understood the depth of
this dream. As crazy as that dream sounded, people do very similar things every
single day. The amazing thing about God is that with every temptation that the
devil sends our way, God has already provided a way of escape! (1 Corinthian
10:13). The problem is we keep making exceptions to the provision that God has
laid before us. In my dream I had choices; there were a number of times where
the Holy Spirit was giving me an opportunity to flee from the situation I was
putting myself in. I had decisions to make and the Holy Spirit was right there willing to lead and guide me
through it but I chose to take matters into my own hands because initially it seemed
okay. Do you know why God gives us the Holy Spirit to lead us? It’s because in spite of our best efforts and
what we may believe, we’re not capable of making the best decisions for
ourselves and so we need that guidance. God sees the end result that we can’t
see so He gives us those checks through the Holy Spirit to help us make the
right decision but we can’t ignore that and do our own thing.

Let’s look at what the bible tells us about fighting
temptations:

1.
Flee fornication.
Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth
fornication sinneth against the body (1 Corinthians 6:18). Now granted
the apostle Paul is referring to sexual sin in this verse but there’s a keyword
that can be applied to dealing with temptations in general and that is to FLEE! My bishop used to say “A good run
can be better than a bad stand.” Look, sometimes you have to put on your jogging
for Jesus shoes and run. You don’t have to play around with sin to know that
the end result is death. Stop seeing just how far you can go and push the
limits yet still claim to be saved. The bible says flee not play patty cake.

2.
Submit
yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
(James 4:7). Once again we have another keyword, RESIST! We give the devil too many opportunities to wreak havoc
because we don’t choose to resist the temptations that are placed before us.
Just as God knows the desires of your heart, so does the devil and he will send
you a Lucifer Jr. beautiful man or Delilah woman who looks,
talks, dresses, walks, and smells exactly the way that you want as a distraction.You’ll be so focused on the exterior that you fail to
see their heart which is wicked and leading you astray.

About 2 years ago
I was at a revival or conference and the speaker asked me how old I was and I
said 23 his response was didn’t God tell you 25? Just be patient. I got really
excited because I wanted to be married by the time I was 25 so I was thinking
yes!!!! God’s going to send me my husband in the next two years party over here!
So every guy I made eye contact I thought that might be my husband. Insert cup
of water for my thirst. The person never said it was a husband that God would
give me by the age of 25 but the bigger picture is that God had never told me
that I would be married at 25 it was just the age that I had chosen for myself!
God had to help me to become content that even if I wasn’t married by the age
of 25 that it was okay
otherwise I would end up settling for everything but a man of God because I
wanted it to happen so badly! Trust me when I say the devil knows the desires
of your heart as well and he will definitely use them to tempt you to create
idols out of them.

3.
Watch and
pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit is indeed willing but the
flesh is weak. (Matthew 26:41). Remind you this is Jesus speaking. He told
the disciples to stay up and pray because He knew the time was at hand that He
would be betrayed. His spirit was willing to be crucified but His flesh was
weak. Guess what? Our spiritual man wants to do what God wants us to do but our
flesh does not; it is weak and wants to do what the world deems as fun. You
need to be prayed up no if, ands, or buts about it. Prayer connects you to God
and when you remove that communication you leave yourself open for your flesh
to rise up and take over. Your strength in fighting temptations comes through
your prayer life. Most people give in to temptations because they didn't prepare on how to deal with them before the temptation arrived. Prayer is your prep.

This obviously is a pretty short list to keep this blog from
being too lengthy but I will do a VLOG as well talking about other things
regarding fighting temptations. Hope this blessed you!